Overall Customer Rating

Pandemic on film

December 1, 2011

What if the weapon that does in modern civilization is one so small that it can only be seen under a microscope? And worse yet, what if it can’t be stopped? If even hearing those questions causes you to panic, you want to skip this film.
Beth Emhoff (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) returns home from a business trip to Hong Kong with symptoms of what appears to be a minor illness until her husband Mitch (played by Matt Damon) finds her on the kitchen floor having a seizure. The doctors are dumbfounded as the disease manages to spread not only in the Emhoffs’ hometown of Minneapolis but also in other communities across the U.S. and the globe. The resulting fears are then stoked by a conspiracy-minded blogger named Alan Krunweide (played by Jude Law) who sees the disease as an attempt to further trim the civil liberties of ordinary citizens while drug companies and medical professionals rake in untold profits. All while actual medical professionals (played by Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard and others) continue to work tirelessly and gain little, if any, advantage in the fight.
As already mentioned, this is a very impressive cast. The individual stories tug at the sympathies of every viewer while the overall narrative is chilling to both germaphobes and those with anti-government leanings. And the eventual explanation montage ties all the events off very nicely. Easily worth the trip.

Its about the disease, not the cast.

August 9, 2012

Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good. I'm not sure why folks thought it was slowed paced. The scenes take you from place to place rather quickly, to follow the disease, not the characters. This is not the movie that dives deep into the background of the characters. Again, it's about the disease, not the cast. I would say that Jude Law has the most screen time, and Gwyneth Paltrow has the least. I don't want to leave any spoilers behind, so I will finish up with this. China must hate this movie. I liked it quite a bit.